40 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



strawberries would not have been benefited by watering. I believe- 

 strawberries want water every day ; all they can get, and a little 

 more. I have not irrigated my own place yet, but I can tell you 

 what I want to do. Our farm is half a mile long by twenty rods 

 wide, and the house is down at the other end. There is a gradual 

 rise in the ground of some eighty or ninety feet, and by going Lack 

 half a mile further we can get an abundance of water. We intend 

 to build a reservoir there, and from that lay a pipe right through 

 the center of the farm, carrying branch pipes off to every part of 

 the ground, and we think by carrying branch pipes to every bed 

 on the rising ground, and elevating the water, it will percolate 

 through the soil and so irrigate the whole ground. 



Mr. Smith, of Wisconsin, asked whether the last speaker gave 

 his berries sufficient depth of culture. 



Mr. Hale, of Connecticut — I don't think we do. I don't think 

 any one does. We plow just as deep as two horses will do it, and 

 then over again with a subsoil plow. I suppose we go twelve or 

 fourteen inches deep. The ground is loosened and then thoroughly 

 cultivated from the first of May until the first of November. This 

 last year was hot and terribly dry, so I took a couple of extra 

 horses and put them to work, and cultivated back and forth be- 

 tween the rows ; and that went on for six weeks, and it saved the 

 plants. When the rains came (about the 10th of September), our 

 plants were uninjured, while in the adjoining fields they had been 

 injured ; and about the first of November we never had a finer lot 

 of plants. 



Dr. McKay, of Mississippi — Don't you think the plants would 

 have greater strength if you did not break off their roots by this 

 deep fall culture? I think that if the gentleman would let his 

 plants stand without breaking off the roots by deep cultivation in. 

 the fall, that he would not find the necessity of so much water. 



Mr. Hale, of Connecticut — You should understand that in the 

 winter our ground is covered with three or four feet of snow and 

 ice. A letter received from Connecticut this afternoon states, " 16°^ 

 below zero and snowing." 



Mr. Galusha, of Illinois — I want to call on the President. He 



